memories ...

maandag 20 april 2015

Trifles to share

If you ever wonder what to do with some cake that's left over, some cream in your fridge that needs to be used up or any type of fruit that's begging to be eaten soon, some booze in the cupboard, look no further: it's time for trifles!

Trifles are super simple and what I'm showing you isn't really a recipe. If you have above mentioned ingredients, you don't need to rush out to get something else (necessarily - unless you want to make them without having left overs or want to fancy things up with extras of course). Let me tell you the story of the heavy cream in the fridge:At home we made waffles a couple of weeks ago for a bunch of family members that came over. In our waffle craze, we thought it was wise to buy more of every ingredient, just in case anyone went hungry (this is a typical Belgian trait, we always tend to buy a lot and serve a lot, even though we have already planned to eat something else the next day and won't be doing anything with the left overs ...). We didn't buy one liter of heavy cream but TWO. Two liters is a lot, I can tell you. Even after eating a pile of waffles each, the 10 of us, there was one and a half liters of cream left. Luckily we only whipped up one liter that time so we only needed to worry about working half a liter up as soon as possible. The other box would keep longer in the fridge. We made chocolate mousse with the left over half liter and that was that.

This week, we checked the box of heavy cream that had been in our fridge for weeks and we saw it was to be eaten this week unless we wanted to throw it away. What to do? What to do? We thought about inviting some extra people and eat waffles and my dad was all crazy about that idea as he LOVES waffles but we decided against it. Waffles for dinner two times in a month is really too much. Plan B was to prepare a number of things to use the cream up: we could use some for pasta alfredo and have a layer cake with whipped cream (these two things are going to be served to us and a bunch of family members who are again helping us out ^^)

For the cream that would be left (because pasta and cake on one night made with that much cream is a major attack on about everything healthwise), we would bake a batch of waffles for dessert for dad (waffles, strawberries and whipped cream, he'll be in heaven). And as I also had one piece of cake left over, it was decided I could make trifles. How to do this? Well that's very easy and a lot of fun with some children as well!Take a piece of cake (regular, vanilla, yogurt or even chocolate), some fruit (berries are wonderful but it's all your choice), whipped and sugared heavy cream (40% fat is what I use). Those are the main ingredients but the trifle can be fancied up with a type of alcohol like Amaretto/marsala or decorated with almond slivers, grated coconut, chocolate sprinkles, ... The possibilities are endless: If you don't have cake, take biscuits and crumble them. If you don't have whipped cream on hands, use some vanilla custard.The amount of each is not very important, if you prefer or have less of the cake it will be less heavy and more fruit makes it healthier.Cut the cake in small cubes and sprinkle some drops of the alcohol on it if you like. I used some marsala for the almond flavour it gives. For my two glasses of trifle, I used 1 large piece of cake.

Take some fruit and cut it in smaller pieces. Fruit like raspberries don't need to be cut up, they're the right size. I cut the strawberries however, to have pieces the size of raspberries. When the fruit has the same size, it'll be a more even trifle in the end. I used couple of strawberries and raspberries. I didn't have them so I specially went to the shop for them, just because I wanted to eat berries in the trifle and not any other fruit (but that's me).

Whip up the heavy cream with some icing sugar to taste.

Then it's time to make the layers: Take a tall glass or any glass of any size you like. I took some larger round glasses and this makes these trifles BIG. Good to share or for big appetites :) Smaller glasses are good when you need some portion control or when you serve it after heavy main courses.With a little help from some spoons, layer the ingredients. I started with some cream, then some fruit and then cake cubes. You keep on layering until you've filled the glass. Anything left over can be eaten by the cook, the dog or anyone who's eyeing you hungrily.

I wanted to decorate a bit with almond slivers but I couldn't find them. They must have been used up. But as they are just extra, no worries.